


Little Samurai

by NarutoDays (DAYS8)



Series: Japanese Folktales [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Historical, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Happy Ending, Height Differences, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Light Angst, Masturbation, Mutilation, Mutual Pining, NaruHina 2020, NaruHina Smut Week 2020, One Shot, Revenge, Romantic Fluff, Samurai, Scent Kink, Size Difference, nothing really bad happens to main characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:02:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26168344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DAYS8/pseuds/NarutoDays
Summary: He's young, brave, motivated.  He's lived through countless dangers and accidents.But he's brushed off as a sheltered maiden's plaything.  He's much too small for his dreams.Based on the Japanese folktale/fairy tale Issun Boshi.Written for NaruHina Smut Week 2020 - Monday - Feudal Japan AU(originally outlined for NH2020 March - Bodyguard AU)
Relationships: Hyuuga Hinata/Uzumaki Naruto
Series: Japanese Folktales [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1307576
Comments: 20
Kudos: 83





	Little Samurai

**Author's Note:**

> So I knew from the start that this was the craziest thing I've ever wanted to write.  
> This is the darkest, strangest story I've ever written, but it's still really fluffy and folktale-y. The dark tags are all here, so while they aren't a focus, and while nothing really bad happens to Naruto and Hinata, you might still want to tread carefully.
> 
> With that said, please enjoy the NaruHina smut and fluff!

The river roars fast and strong, pulling his makeshift boat far and away from his home, from the parents who raised him, and the forest he grew up in.

But he knows he’ll return some day! He’ll return a fierce and famous warrior! He’ll come home with riches to share, and his old parents will never have to do any backbreaking labor like woodcutting or washing laundry at the riverside ever again!

He draws out his sword from its scabbard at his hip, pointing the sharp end straight up and ahead to the setting sun.

At the headstrong age of 13, his adventure is just beginning.

He wakes to violent shaking, waves splashing into his boat, quickly drenching his clothes. He snaps to attention and secures his few rations around his waist.

Carefully, he peeks over the lip of the boat to see the source of the commotion, but the boat knocks against a wide lily pad, sending him and the boat spinning. Again and again, the boat spins this way and that before getting trapped among crowded leaves.

Regaining some sense of direction, he dares to look out once more.

A loud CROOAK breaks through the air, and he immediately recognizes the cry.

A toad.

Leaping and plopping mightily across the lily pads toward _his_ boat, rippling waves rocking him nearly seasick, vibrating him with each landing.

He’s not going to let the crazy animal get the best of him! In fact, this might be his next ticket out into the rest of the world! Carefully, he times the toad’s jumps as it closes in on him, and just as it tips his boat over, he somersaults onto the toad’s back.

Slimy and wet, the bumps are almost not enough to keep him stable, but this isn’t the first time he’s hitched rides on the frisky and unpredictable creatures that wandered by or into his old home.

The toad leaps high into the air, and he yells out in surprised glee. It travels farther and faster than he’d be able to on foot, but eventually, it stops to rest where dirt and mud become poky stones.

“Thanks for the ride!” he calls as he hops off. He wipes his hands dry and looks across the expanse of gray rocks. A huge residence of some sort spreads out before him. It’s the largest structure he’s ever seen. A mansion compared to the hut his parents live in.

_This is it!_ , he realizes with excitement. Quite obviously a lord of some sort lives here.

And just as he imagines what a grand life his parents could live with money like this, the tell-tale crunch of feet draws near.

Men appear, strolling through the garden. Long swords strapped to their sides.

Samurai! Real samurai!

He watches in awe.

This isn’t just any rich merchant family. It must be a samurai clan’s household!

He ambles through the garden, excitedly skipping over the ridges and edges. He climbs up a decorative tree, balances across a branch, and jumps down onto the engawa with a solid roll.

Now to find someone.

He walks across the smooth, shining wood, listening for where the most movement is coming from.

_Here._

Footsteps approach from behind the shoji, he takes a huge breath in, and the door slides open.

“HEEEYY!” he shouts with his full lung capacity.

The servant pauses.

He takes another breath in. “DOOWN HEERE!” He nods in approval as the woman looks down. “HELLOO!” he greets.

“What on earth?”

He ignores the rude and entirely too common response and continues, “MY NAME IS NARUTO! IT’S NICE TO MEET YOU!”

The servant bends down and stares at him.

Which is perfect because he didn’t want to have to keep yelling. “Who’s the master here? I want to join the ranks!”

Her brows furrow and her mouth drops. “Is this real?”

“Yes, I’m real, and I want to be a samurai, too! I have a sword, see?” He pulls out his own blade, gifted to him from his mother for his journey.

She sounds out surprise and confusion.

But he has no patience for such behavior. “Please show me to your master!”

“Um.” She holds out her hand, and he gladly climbs on.

“Thank you!”

Her eyes widen as if she’s never seen someone as small as him before, and well, he knows she hasn’t. He has yet to meet someone like himself, too, but that only means he’s destined for a greatness unlike anyone else’s! At least, that’s what his father told him.

She turns abruptly and rushes through the house.

He appreciates her hustle.

And she slows before another closed room. She manages to kneel down into seiza without dropping him. “Excuse me, Hyuuga-sama, but I have a small...trouble for your attention.”

Naruto crosses his arms in wait, and thankfully, he doesn’t have to wait for long.

The servant is invited into the room, and, with head bowed, she opens the door. “Please excuse my intrusion.”

“What is it?”

“I have...a small person.” She holds her hand forward more, as if that might help the man see him more clearly. As if maybe he didn’t see him standing there in the first place.

But Naruto doesn’t waste anymore time, taking care to bow deeply, then stand straight. “IT’S NICE TO MEET YOU. MY NAME IS NARUTO, AND I HAVE TRAVELED VERY FAR TO MEET YOU.” It’s closer to the truth than it is a lie.

“Come closer,” the man invites, and the servant somehow scoots forward. She sets her hand down so that he can hop onto the man’s chabudai.

Naruto immediately kneels, and the man slightly lowers to be more eye-level.

“Where did you come from?”

The question is not what he was expecting and it makes him take pause. There are a lot of ways he could answer such a question. “I’m from a village South of here. I left my home a few days ago to seek knowledge and strength so that I may support my family. I wish to be a samurai.”

“You have a family?” This time, the man’s voice sounds much more surprised.

“Yes. However my parents claim I was a child sent from the gods.”

“A child of the gods?” The man straightens. “What can you do?”

“I can do anything. If you allow me to join your samurai’s training, I will be able to protect you and your assets.”

“...Is that so?” The man deliberates for awhile in silence. “...I am not a fool. As small as you are, anyone can see that you are certainly not from this world.”

Naruto stiffens, sensing the man had come to his verdict.

“My only option is to let you stay here. On one condition. You must entertain my daughter.”

_His daughter?_ Several questions fly through his mind, but even he knows it would be improper for him to suddenly question his new master’s orders. He answers with a certain and confident, “Understood!”

The servant totes him to a room on the other side of the estate. The expansive grounds are mind-boggling. His old home would fit in just one of these rooms!

Again, the servant kneels into seiza. “Excuse me, Hinata-sama.”

There is no answer.

But Naruto can hear the sound of a brush on paper.

“I’m coming in, Hinata-sama.”

The servant waits another second before sliding the shoji open.

A girl sits near the opposite side, apparently practicing calligraphy, or perhaps writing a poem. She doesn’t look up. Her dark hair obscures her face, but even without seeing her, he can tell the pampered life she has lived until now. Her kimono is richly colored. Her hand gracefully strokes even brushes across the paper unhesitatingly. 

“Excuse my intrusion, Hinata-sama, but Hyuuga-sama has a gift for you.”

_A gift? Me?!_ His brow arches at the term in offense. “I AM NOT A GIFT!” he argues loudly enough for the girl to look up.

Her face, like her hand, is astonishingly fair. He’s never seen anyone with skin as white as hers, as if she’s never been touched by the sun. She blinks several times, and his attention is drawn to strikingly dreamy eyes.

He pushes forward despite how weird she looks. “MY NAME IS NARUTO!”

The girl’s head tilts. “Not a gift…?” she murmurs quietly. It’s so quiet, he’s almost certain that the servant didn’t hear her. Her voice was just at that level where _he_ can hear such frequencies, but his parents never could quite catch. She looks back down at her paper and resumes her writing.

He can hear the servant’s breath speed up. “He can be your guardian, Hinata-sama. He must stay with you for now.”

That’s decidedly _not_ what his master said, but he isn’t about to argue with that! His chest puffs up with pride. If he can not only entertain her but also keep her safe, her father will certainly see his worth, and he’ll be able to return home a rich and successful samurai! “YES, HINATA-SAMA! I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM EVERYTHING! WITH ME AROUND, THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR!”

The girl looks up, blinking once more. She stands up, walks closer, then kneels down. Her hands come out to the servant, and he steps onto her snowy hands. Surprisingly, she’s not ice-cold, just a normal warm. She holds him up to her moon-pale eyes, subjecting him to her complete scrutiny.

It’s not something he’s unused to, but it’s not necessarily something he likes. To break her stare, he continues with his introduction. “It’s nice to meet you, Hinata-sama. I will do everything in my power to keep you safe, believe it!”

Her stoic expression softens for a second. He nearly thought she was going to smile. Instead she stands up again, turning around silently. She walks around her room with him in her palm.

He sees her work-table with her exquisite calligraphy. He sees her fusuma covered in expensive-looking art. He sees where her drawers are for her clothing, shelves lined with rolled up scrolls, her futon.

After the tour, she sits back down, letting him step off onto the table.

“Your writing is beautiful!” he compliments, already set on his mission to make her smile.

She looks at him, a smile nowhere near her lips.

He doesn’t hear her speak again, not for the rest of the day. Not for the rest of the night. And not for lack of effort on his part.

He commented on anything he could think of. All to silence.

It was the quietest afternoon of his life. The problem his master had tasked him with was all too clear to him now.

Hinata isn’t normal.

But he’s not normal, either. He’s not going to give up, not on his first day, not tomorrow, not next week or next month or next year!

He follows her around as she gets ready for bed.

She pulls out a plain kosode and begins to shrug off the layers of her uchikake.

_She wears such fancy clothes_ , he observes. His parents only ever wore one layer. He’s about to voice aloud this noticing, as he has been all day about her lifestyle and practices, when she pulls out a bare arm.

Against the candlelight, her skin reflects almost orange, like fire flaring beneath paper, it’s amazing she isn’t burned. Compared to the old ladies at the public baths who he would see when his mother would take him with her, or compared to his aging parents themselves, Hinata’s back appears as smooth as a soft tofu delicacy. Her waistline, her lower back, her butt, her legs, as she stands up with her kosode, are smooth and shiny like expensive ceramic chawan.

For once, he has nothing to say.

Come morning, she stares at him, blinking hard and often, the way she has been since the day before.

She changes while he sits there, and voicelessly, he watches.

From his current angle, he can see her front.

Like mountains of snow, her breasts rise outward rather than slope to the floor. Just like his mother, she lacks anything between her legs.

But heat poofs up his face. _Beautiful_ doesn’t seem quite right, even though he’s pretty sure that’s what she is.

Suddenly, it makes sense for her to wear such fancy clothes.

When her breakfast comes, she says nothing to the servant who delivers it. She eats silently and she eats very little, like a bird pecking at seed. She was the same the night before at dinner.

His stomach grumbles.

He’s the one who’s been eating seeds the past few days. Not that it doesn’t do the trick, he’d just like something different. He opens up his pack and eats what he has left. He’ll have to either start scrounging for anything around the house or garden...or he can try to get food from his ward.

Quite easily, he finds his voice again. “You should eat more, Hinata-sama!”

Her gaze flicks off her tray and lands on him with the most startled expression.

“Why do you eat so little? You don’t get hungry? You have so much food, but you’re not going to finish it? That’s such a waste, don’t you think?”

For the first time since the day before, a breath leaves her mouth. “Y-you’re real?” Her voice is more whispery than the wind itself.

He grimaces. “What?! You mean this whole time you thought I was... _fake_?!”

“I…” Her voice trails out into nothing.

“I’m real! I’m Naruto! Just because I’m small doesn’t mean I can’t do everything normal like all of you! I’m going to be the next great samurai!”

She gasps again, blinking, watching him.

“...So are you going to eat?”

“I-I’m...not hungry,” she practically whispers out. Her quiet voice is actually really nice to hear. It makes her seem a little less giant, a little more like himself in a way.

Annoyance considerably scaled back with how soft-spoken she is, he ventures his most important question. “...Then, can I have some?”

She nods.

He views her half-eaten food. “Can I have some of your fish?”

Maybe she’s a little person on the inside. With the way she speaks, walks, and keeps to herself, it’s as if she’s trying to shrink herself inwards.

He’s always been trying to make himself bigger.

“You don’t want to go outside?” he asks after a whole morning of her reading and writing silently.

She shakes her head.

“Why not?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Why do you read all the time?” He can’t read very much himself except for some common words.

“...I-I like it.”

“It’s more fun to go outside, don’t you think?”

She shakes her head and continues reading.

At lunch and then at dinner, she clears a little plate for him. She sets pieces of her food aside, and he gladly stuffs himself full.

“Thank you, Hinata-sama! The food here is the most delicious I’ve ever eaten! You sure are lucky!”

No answer.

After this second day with her, he starts to wonder if this will be even more difficult than he thought.

When she begins getting ready for bed, memories of that morning and the night before rush back into his mind’s eye. With held breath, he watches her pull out another kosode.

She suddenly looks up and around until her eyes fall on him. She gasps, a sound he’s growing quite familiar with. “T-t-turn around, p-please.” Her voice is as faint as the leaves rustling outside.

He feels like he was caught doing something bad, even if he wasn’t, so his immediate reaction is to defend, “What, why?”

She blinks several times, her head slightly swaying, and he wonders if she’s about to faint.

“Okay, okay!” He turns around and stares at the floor.

The slip and rustle of cotton fills his ears. He can imagine everything. His face feels hot, his hands tingly, and on reflection, he wonders if watching her before really was a bad thing after all.

When she blows out the candle and tucks herself into bed, he settles himself on the tatami beside her.

Having done practically nothing all day, he doesn’t fall asleep as easily as he did the night before.

Will this be his life from now on? Just these four walls? Her life is so boring! He can’t take this! He’ll get her to smile tomorrow for sure, and he’ll be done with this!

But how can he entertain her? His jokes and questions do nothing for conversation, she can’t talk to save her life.

“N-N-..Naruto-san?”

He perks up. “Yes?”

“..W-where...where are you?”

“What’s wrong?” he asks, concerned at how she’s the one suddenly asking questions. “I’m right here.”

She sits up, looking around.

“I’m right next to you. Is something wrong?”

She looks around, but obviously still doesn’t know where he is with her eyes not quite adjusted to the dark. “Do y-you...do you sleep?”

He snorts. “Of course I sleep!” _She really still thinks I’m not real?!_

“On the...floor…?”

“Well...yeah. I mean I used to have a bed at home, but since I left, I just sleep wherever.”

Silence.

With no response to his long answer, he rolls his eyes and lies back down.

Just as he’s about to fall asleep, she asks, “Y-you left home?”

“Huh? Yeah.”

She doesn’t ask another question for the rest of the night.

But the following morning, she picks him up. Stares at him with extreme focus again as if she hadn’t done this same thing on the first day.

She asks the servant for a random assortment of items: an empty pin box, silk scraps, and scissors.

“I-if you’d like…” she starts, gesturing at the box, now lined and stuffed full with material. “...for a bed…”

Lacquered black and delicately painted in gold with pine trees and cranes, the box is flashier than anything he’d ever been given. The silk, while a plain beige, is still patterned with a threaded design. Eyes wide, he exclaims in honest awe, “I’ll sleep like the emperor every night!” He runs, grabs the edge of the box, and swings his legs over. He lands inside like he’s falling on clouds. “This is amazing! Thanks!”

When he opens his eyes, he sees her.

Smiling!

A small one that lights up her eyes and her pale cheeks in a way he hadn’t yet seen over the previous two days.

“You’re smiling!” he shouts, pointing at her.

She blinks in surprise but nods. “I-I’m sorry for...m-making you...s-sleep on, on the floor.”

He shrugs. “A samurai is strong and can withstand anything! Sleeping on the floor is nothing!” He gets up and out of the bed, finds his sword, and brandishes it dramatically. “I’m going to be the strongest warrior there ever was!”

And he can start now, can’t he? She smiled after all, so he gets to stay!

...But how can he find her father?

“Where do they hold practices? I want to train to be a great samurai, too!”

Her face plasters back to stoic, but she nods. “...I...I can...show you…”

She totes him down hallways, out of her house, her pace slowing, slowing, slowing, until she completely stops at the gate, her hand not even raising to open it.

He listens, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary. “What’s wrong?”

She shakes her head again.

“You can’t go any farther?”

She frowns, her face ducking down.

“It’s okay!” he quickly reassures. “Just tell me where to go! I can find my way back easily, too!” It’ll take awhile to walk, but he’s used to it. And after everything he’s eaten the past day, he’s got so much energy, he’s fit to burst.

“...It’s...down the road that way,” she breathes. “Th-then take a right.”

“Got it.”

She lowers her hand, and he steps off. He runs under the gate and hears her whisper, “..fast..”

Of course he’s fast! He’s had to outrun birds, snakes, and all sorts of beasts to make sure he’d survive to this day!

He turns the corner and, with careful listening, finds a grand courtyard. Men hold their swords, swinging them with precision and purpose.

Her father is nowhere to be seen. But that doesn’t stop him from joining in. He finds a spot to stand safely, overjoyed to finally learn the ways of the sword.

Dirty and sweaty, he really needs a bath. He hasn’t bathed since the toad splashed water into his boat, and he’s not sure that actually counts. So when he returns to the house, he finds Hinata near the door. Waiting? This, and the way she made him a bed and always shares food with him all point to quite a generous and nice girl.

He decides to be upfront with his request.

She frowns in complete thought but nods. “I-is tonight okay?”

“That’s great, thanks!”

So later on, when she returns from the public baths, she totes a cup of still-steaming water. She cuts a bit of soap and sets everything out in the garden outside her room.

“Thanks!” He shucks off his obi, impatient to finally get clean.

“Wait!” It’s the loudest he’s yet heard her.

He pauses, fingers tucked beneath the collar of his kimono at the ready to throw it off.

“W-wait… Do, do you have..other clothes?”

He shakes his head with a shrug. “I only brought this with me.”

With that, she quickly ducks back into her room.

That night, he settles into his comfortable bed, all clean, except for his stinky clothes. He can feel himself drifting off to sleep a lot more easily tonight due to all of his movement earlier in the day.

But just as he feels himself slipping off, she calls quietly, “N-Naruto-san?”

“Hm? Yes?” He blinks himself awake.

“Are...are you...human?”

He’s been asked this same question in many different forms, most commonly, What are you?, Why are you so small?, and most recently, Where did you come from? and You have a family? He decides that out of all of the ways she could have asked, hers is the simplest and most straightforward he’s ever heard. “Yeah,” he answers. “At least I think I am. Besides my height, my body seems to work the same way yours does.”

“I...I see.”

“My parents told me that they couldn’t have a child,” he explains. “So they prayed everyday to our local deity, and my mother gave birth to me not long after. I was smaller than her pinky finger. I’ve grown, but I’ve always been...small…”

“Why...did you leave home? W-wasn’t it, wasn’t it dangerous?”

He grins, remembering his exciting journey here. He recounts to her his reasons for leaving, how he stubbornly convinced his parents to let him travel, the treacherous river, and the wild toad he caught a ride on.

She calls him brave.

He finds out she’s 12, a year younger than him. That she’s barely ever stepped foot outside the immediate neighborhood, rarely goes out except to the nearby baths.

“Why not? Don’t you want to see what’s out there?” he questions in his shock.

“I…” Her voice fades into the song of crickets. “I don’t...think I can…”

“Huh? Why?”

She doesn’t answer.

He comes to expect her surprising chattiness at bedtime.

As well as the sudden endings.

So he figures out how to not push the obvious topic she willfully ignores and learns how to keep her interested. He tells her of his adventures growing up, the terrible, creepy crawly creatures he’s chased away and killed to keep his family’s food safe, the times he nearly died, and on some vulnerable nights, the malicious things people have said or done to him.

She begins requesting his stories, sometimes the same ones.

Some nights, she falls asleep while he’s retelling her favorite ones, her even breathing a giveaway.

And during the day, she shares food with him, takes him to the gate to see him off for his sword practice, surprises him with something new. A winter kimono that’s just his size. Chopsticks for him to try to use at meals instead of his hands. She starts to read poems aloud for him. She writes down his own made-up, ridiculous poetry in her excellent calligraphy, then reads it back to him as if his silly words are pieces of wisdom.

She laughs when he laughs.

And he starts to piece together why she’s so sheltered.

Her father’s rarely around, leaving to reside in the capitol as a skilled retainer to the shogun for months at a time. Security is high and servants check on Hinata often throughout the day.

Once every few months, she ventures out to the local shrine, slightly outside of her neighborhood, to pay her respects.

It’s quite an affair, requiring servants and at least one samurai to accompany her.

Passersby murmur among themselves, “Hyuuga-sama’s daughter!” followed with exclamations of awe and admiration. Very often they comment on her beauty, a few gossip about her marriage prospects, and her accompanying samurai walks proudly forward despite the way Hinata seems smaller with each step.

The seething in his gut as the samurai tries to make conversation, the thickness in his throat as he listens to Hinata’s reluctant replies, all of it makes Naruto start to wish Hinata would just stay home. If she doesn’t like going out, then why go out at all? He’s supposedly the child of a god! As her daily guardian, what more does she need to ask for from the heavens?

And at the end, the samurai will always ask that she request him for her next outing.

Naruto wishes he could scream, _SHE DOESN’T LIKE YOU! SHE DOESN’T NEED YOU!_ But he hasn’t had outbursts like that in a long time. He’s been learning to carry himself the way a samurai should, with dignity.

It’s a huge relief, each time, that it’s always a different escort.

At the blossoming age of 15, she grows her hair out long.

On thoughtful days like this, he goes about her room gathering the darkly glistening strands that litter the floor while she gazes outside at the garden.

“Why do you pick my hair up?” she asks. However soft she still is, her voice has long since lost its tremble in his presence.

“Why not?” he jokes in response.

“It’s embarrassing.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is,” she argues.

He pulls the strands together into a pile near his bed. They glimmer a dark blue in the sun, a rich color like the most valuable thread. By later tonight, when she comes back from the baths, her room will be cleaned, the hair swept away and disposed of. “It’s your hair, though.”

“Exactly. You could pick up your own hair.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Then why just my hair?”

He turns around. Finds her gaze, just as strangely dreamy as the first day he saw her, but now it’s like her look alone could transport him to the moon and stars.

He shrugs in response.

When he turns 17, he measures three coins tall.

“You grew,” she announces with a smile, and with her face at his level, he can see every curling eyelash, he can sense the heat of her cheek, the puff of her breath.

She can’t see how something dizzy and unfocused settles through him like fog.

She can’t know how he feels.

How when her admirers come to visit, many of them samurai he’s seen practicing in the mornings, and she must sit in a room behind a byobu while they read her poor poetry of love on the other side...how his heart _lurches_ with a clash of envy and helplessness. How he hears them sing praises down on her and all that they would do for her, and how he thinks that they don’t know, they don’t know, they don’t know even a fraction of what he knows.

She secretly wishes to see the world.

She doesn’t want anymore clothes or hairpins or delicacies from other towns. She doesn’t want to be called every name of beautiful every hour of the day. She doesn’t want to marry.

“Naruto-kun,” she whispers one night.

“Yeah?” He sits by her pillow, head fuzzy with a secret bliss that steals across his mind whenever she calls him more intimately that anyone else.

“What if…” She hesitates in a way he hasn’t heard in years.

He finds himself caught in her gaze, those dreamy eyes swallowing him whole. If he were bigger, if only he were bigger… “Hm? What is it?”

“What if...I were little?”

“...Little?” he repeats, as if he’s never before entertained the thought of her being as small as her voice, the same size as him, perfect for him to hold and escape with.

“If I were little,” she continues, “what could we do?”

His heart rate runs away, heat exploding through his face and body. “...We could do anything.”

“...Anything?” she breathes.

“Yeah.”

“Like what?”

But rather than think of all the fantasies he’s conjured over the years, the only question in his mind is what she wants from him. _What does she want me to say? Why is she asking this?_ He dares to move closer to her, to torture himself that much more. “We could hitch a ride on a toad together.”

She smiles. “We could go down the river in a wooden chawan,” she adds on.

“I’d use a chopstick for an oar.”

“You’d use your sword to protect me from the birds.”

“You mean my needle?” he corrects with some derision.

Her head shifts against the pillow, disagreeing with him. “Your sword,” she reasserts.

The cursed feeling in him blooms painfully, almost suffocatingly. “...Hinata-sama…” Why does she encourage him like this? When nothing can come from it? “What is a samurai without a real sword?”

She murmurs, “...You’re my samurai, right? With or without a ‘real’ sword? You’ll protect me from everything, you promised me that with you around, there’s nothing to fear.”

His heart’s melting. Bleeding. Filling his lungs and threatening to pour out in words. Yet somehow, he finds his voice to reassure her of his oath from so long ago. “I’ll always be your samurai.”

“Always? You won’t leave me?”

“Of course not.”

Her gaze picks him apart the way she does sometimes, as if she’s counting every crease and fold in his kimono. His heart thuds under her examination. He’s trapped. To wish to be someone else. To wish that no one else take his place. No one. If only he were one of her father’s men… “What could we do if I were bigger?”

She reaches out, and he climbs into her palm, where he takes a seat to lean back against the curl of her fingers. Softly, she asks, “...Would you take me away from here?”

“I’d take you wherever you want to go.”

“...I want to try to find your parents.”

“Yeah…we would follow the river upstream.”

“You could show me your family’s shrine. I could give thanks to your god.”

_Thanks for what? Why was I even born?_ “Maybe my god wouldn’t recognize me anymore if I were big.”

“Maybe your parents wouldn’t recognize you either,” she adds with a thoughtful hum.

“No one would,” he chuckles half-heartedly. 

Her head shifts against the pillow again in disagreement. “I would.”

He smiles, nods, knows it to be true. “You would.”

She sighs, a soft sound that always sends a tremor through his spine. “Naruto-kun,” she breathes, “tell me about the time you rode on top of the squirrel.”

He quirks a smile. It’s one of his craziest stories, but for some reason, it relaxes her the fastest. He launches into the tale of circling around and around the trees on its back while they hissed at all of the birds.

Her eyes start to flutter shut.

Snapping open.

Heavily lowering.

Forced open.

As he details chasing one mean bird off of every tree on the back of his mighty squirrel, her eyes peacefully close.

He tries not to think about how one day, she will fall asleep to the tales of another man. How her hand will one day hold someone else. He presses his own hand along the lines of her palm, each wrinkle memorized, the patterns an intricately beautiful flow that no one will ever know more intimately than him.

Her fingers twitch from his caress, her hand nearly wrapping over him.

He laughs and moves to slide off.

“Don’t go.”

He freezes.

“Please… Stay here… On my pillow or…” She drifts back into sleep.

Every night since, she asks him to stay by her until morning.

He stops using his lavish bed altogether.

The fear of being crushed is there, he sleeps less easily, but falling asleep and waking up to have his vision full of her perfection, there’s nothing he can do to deny her.

Hopeless.

He’s cursed.

He’ll have her in any way he can.

His time’s running out.

A tall samurai, one of the tallest of the group in sheer mockery of his fate, is chosen for her. Otsutsuki Toneri lacks nothing in skills and eloquence. He boasts of his romantic win to the others when he thinks none of the higher-ups will hear, and that’s how Naruto overhears the decision, like Raijin himself sliced him through with his demonic lightning.

He barely makes it home that day.

Hinata doesn’t greet him at the door.

He lies there at the entrance, everything else numb but the pain at his eyes and in his chest.

Wordlessly, hours later, Hinata picks him up, tucks him in her sleeve’s pocket, and takes him with her when she leaves for the baths.

It’s been years since he went to a public onsen, not since the times his mother took him with her when he was a child.

She places him on top of the shelves and says nothing as she starts to undress.

He’s frozen. He’s supposed to look away. He can’t.

She’s looking straight at him, her reddened, puffy eyes brazenly fixed on him as she unwraps her body, white skin appearing in places his own body lacks.

Vaguely, he remembers soft tofu and ceramic, a distant feeling of awe. Instead it’s a boiling heat in his groin, a helpless need burning his hands and his lips like the bath’s steam accumulating on his skin.

She whispers, “Naruto-kun.”

His heart thumps harder, his own clothes falling at his feet, and her eyes tracing over every part of him.

Does she know everything about him?

How, when she picks him up and holds him close at her chest, he can hear her heart, feel it drumming beneath her skin surely as loudly as his own? How being so close to her makes him want to imbed himself permanently to her soul?

In the nights leading up to her marriage, she secretly takes him with her to the baths, keeping him out of sight of any others as they wash then bathe. She hangs onto the edge of the bath, letting him soak between her breasts and the wall.

It’s his new favorite part of her.

He came to love her strange eyes.

He definitely loves her hands.

And now he loves squishing her soft breast at night, watching her nipple distend, feeling her entire body quake against the futon, and letting her deeply sweet scent blanket all of his chaotic thoughts.

She lets him follow that distinct smell to the apex of her thighs, her nagajuban pulled open for him to gaze upon the secrets of a woman’s flesh.

His name and sighing moans spill out of her lips like her glistening, sticky fluid and headying scent from below.

His blood rushes too fast for him to breathe. He’s never held such power over anyone or anything so much bigger than himself. He works on the parts of her that make her give and give, surrender control to him until his hands and arms are coated in her slippery essence.

As she relaxes into sleep, he takes the honey of her body and smooths it over his own throbbing region. Hot and right, he experiences heights of pleasure that fuel this ever-growing greed. He releases against her shining skin, proof in his hazy mind that this moment is his.

This Hinata is his, and nothing else matters.

An instructional book is given to her. Her duty on her marriage night.

He can’t read all of the words despite Hinata’s teaching over the past few years, but the accompanying pictures are certainly detailed enough.

A man is meant to go inside a woman.

His all-consuming desire for her is meant to be satisfied in such a real, true way. If he were her husband. If he were bigger.

But he’s not.

That’s somebody else.

Just imagining her wed to someone else makes him want to die. Imagining her physically connected to the Otsutsuki makes him want to kill himself.

“You won’t leave me by myself, right? That day…?”

_“That day”_ being her wedding day. And he has to promise, as he has been every day since they found out about the decision, “No,...Hinata-sama.”

“You’ll stay with me?”

He can’t imagine going through with it. Being there. Watching? Listening? He couldn’t possibly handle that. “Of course.”

“Naruto-kun,” she whispers, “I don’t want to do this.” She buries her face in her arms, slumping over her table.

She’s crying again.

He’s comforting her again, repeating promises he’s not even sure he can keep. Her marriage is in two days. What’s going to happen to them after this?

Why does this have to happen?

What even is his life?

Was he only born to be tortured? Was she simply born to be trapped in a house?

Was meeting her his destiny?

So that they could suffer together rather than alone?

That night he forgets all of the pain in favor of her pleasure. Controlling her body, her breath, her very mind, an incredible power that has him slipping easily into mindless devotion.

Suddenly, she removes him from his work down below, brings him back up so that she can see him. Her heavy gasps cloak him hotter, burning him up, his pulsing need pointing at her just like in the pictures. Her fingers so gently caress his arms and his back. Her face draws nearer and nearer until they’re skin-to-skin, she’s breathing him in, leaving him trembling, her lips brushing warm at his chest, stomach, hardness.

Unbidden, he groans, “Please,” but he doesn’t know what he’s begging her to do until shivers shoot up his spine, ecstacy bursting through him, an unchecked moan ripped from his gut.

The tip of her tongue pressing on and comforting him. It’s unthinkable, it’s so wrong.

It feels so good.

He thrusts against her tongue, his hips wildly moving, his throbbing piece sliding along and curving against plush, wet flesh.

Heart in his face, tremors rolling through his body, he gazes helplessly into glazed, dreamy eyes. “Hinata…”

Her hand leaves his body, disappearing between her legs. Her scent filling the air.

Madly, he rubs his length over and under, coating everything in her saliva. He folds her tongue around him, the soft flesh twitching in his hands and around his lust. Light sparks off behind his eyelids, heavy pleasure amassing in his core with each drag and retreat.

A breathy, needy moan hits his face. Her body jerks, her tongue stiffening and shaking in his hands, and he grips her harder, forces himself into the fold of soft muscle more fervidly.

“Hinata...Hinata…” He gulps down words he might regret, but each new blast of pleasure rings them back to the forefront. “Hinata…mm…I...I...”

He wants to marry her.

He wants to protect her from all of her father’s enemies. He wants her to rely on him more than anyone else.

Flames surge through his body, his eyes clench shut, teeth gritted, desperation making his chest swell until a shout blares out, awful bliss clawing beneath his skin, his desires spurting forth, tears flooding his eyes, streaming down his face faster than relief can follow.

He lets go of her to hide his face in his arm and stumble away from her. He tries to breathe.

He can’t.

Tears well up and spill out uncontrollably, and he collapses off onto the floor, too near hysterical.

“Naruto-kun…”

“No, don’t,” he gasps out. He can’t bear to hear her acknowledge this shame. He’s not fit for anything, least of all a strong, fearless samurai.

“But Naruto-kun! I-”

“NO!” His yell seems to almost echo through the late night, much louder and harsher than he intended. Heart clenched, somehow he knows what she wants to say, but he retreats to his bed, cold and far, and he listens to her quiet whimpers, her stifled cries, until sleep overtakes her hours later.

“We’re running away,” she whispers to him with a bright, hopeful smile.

He blinks at her in utter confusion. “Hinata-sama…” He knows he should remind her that such an idea is complete foolishness.

He’s sure that she knows that.

All it takes is for him to tell her, _We can’t do that._ So why do the words not come out?

He’d have no way to take care of her. No food. No money. No comfort.

_We can’t…_

She pockets him in her sleeve. She begs a servant to let her visit the shrine without a samurai escort. “It wouldn’t be fair to Otsutsuki-san to go with another escort,” she claims. “Nothing will happen. Nothing has ever happened.”

“But Hinata-sama,” the servant tries, “Your marriage is tomorrow. If anything were to happen to you.”

“Please, I just want to pray for my future. I am so nervous… We can be very fast. If I dress plainly and if I am without so much escorts, people will not notice me. Please?”

“If you must visit the shrine today, then there is nothing stopping us from inviting Otsutsuki-sama with us.”

“I do not want to be a bother to him…”

“Hinata-sama…if anything were to happen...I simply can’t allow for such a risk.”

Her shoulders slump, she pleads, but the servant doesn’t budge. So Hinata relents. She whispers to him, “It’s okay. We can still get away. They won’t be able to see us. We’ll be too small.”

Even more confusion boggles his mind. _We’ll be too small? What?_ And with each step toward the shrine, he wonders if she’s truly serious. Does she really mean to run away?

The sound of coins clattering against the wooden slats of the offering box, the bell rather aggressively jingling, the familiar sway of her body bowing, her hands clapping, and she stands still for a long time. Much longer than usual. Her breath comes out in uneven pants, a strained, begging whisper of “ _please_ , _please_ ” repeats.

A whimper sounds from her throat.

Still, she stands for longer.

The servant behind them quietly calls her name.

Hinata remains unmoving, only whispering, “ _Please_ ,” pitifully.

Chills race up his back. He tries to stand, tries to clamber out from her sleeve.

Heavy footsteps echo nearly imperceptibly from the forest.

“Hinata-sama,” the servant calls.

Just as he tries to peek out, Hinata finally claps her hands, the sudden motion knocking him back.

“Wait,” he calls.

“Do not be so nervous for tomorrow, Hinata-san,” Toneri comments, his voice carrying over his own. “Come now, we must hurry back and prepare ourselves.”

_No, something is-!_ He tries to escape the confines of the silky fabric. “Wait!” he shouts.

Hinata seems to slow, but she doesn’t respond.

“WAIT STOP!” He makes it to the edge of her sleeve without slipping.

“Naruto-kun...my prayers didn’t work,” she whispers mournfully. She steps out onto the opposite side of the torii.

A weight lands in front of her with a loud thud.

Screaming. The servant’s.

**“At last.”** A terrible voice, deeply throated. **“You’re even more beautiful up close.”**

Hinata freezes in place.

“A demon!” Toneri exclaims. He draws his sword and swings it powerfully, the blade embedding into the monster’s ashen back.

The demon reaches behind himself, pulling it from Toneri’s hands easily, no blood flowing out, the metal snapping in two with an incredible _crack_ , the pieces clunking to the ground. **“If only I had known your swords were like toys sooner…”** The demon laughs, a raking, scratching noise.

Impact hits Hinata so fast and hard, Naruto nearly flies head-first from her sleeve.

The demon clutches her, her feet off the ground. **“I waited and waited for the right chance. Yet today you prayed and prayed. Did you know I was here, finally decided on my move, waiting for you? But I was patient, I waited still longer. For you, the Hyuuga daughter, the virgin beauty so favored, even supposedly guarded by the gods… Perhaps that’s not so anymore.”** The demon grunts wickedly, the servant shrieks a bloodcurdling cry, he laughs louder. **“Yes! Run, run, before I snap you in half like your toys.”**

The servant takes off, Toneri turning and following quickly after her.

With Hinata tight in his grip, the demon sprints madly up the mountain, and Naruto is tossed backwards into the sleeve, the whiplash making him sick. His hand grabs at the eye of his needle, strapped to his side, his heart thumping wildly, zero solutions coming to mind but his body struggling to crawl out and protect her on instinct alone.

The demon drops her onto the floor of his lair, and still Hinata doesn’t scream, merely frozen in place, sprawled in the dirt.

Naruto finally manages to clamber out, climb up her kimono, into her collar behind her neck. “Hinata,” he gasps at her ear.

**“Hmm, what should I do with you first?”** The demon stands above her, eyes dragging over her body.

She lets out a sickening sound, not a scream, just a drawn-out syllable of pure fear.

**“Mmm, that’s nice. I want more of that. Yes, I need to play with you now before I start fattening you up.”** The demon saunters over to a pile of gold and fantastic relics. He pushes items on the side carelessly, finally grabbing at a smoothly carved handle.

A mallet, ornate in decoration, unlike anything in production today.

Naruto’s eyes widen in shock, his mind racing, but his body just as frozen as hers as the reality of their isolation begins to sink in.

**“Do you know what this is?”**

Hinata can’t even speak, she’s hyperventilating.

The demon twirls it in his hand. **“I’m not going to smash you with this. I wouldn’t ruin my food like that. I do enjoy playing with my food, though.”** He smiles, his large eyes bulging out like rocks at the riverside. He taps it against his hip, his balled-up dick springing out twice as large as before, grotesque in shape. **“And I’ve always wanted to try this game. Your human men get to have all the fun. But I didn’t want just any woman to play with. I wanted the most beautiful of all, the virgin loved by the gods, screaming on my filth.”**

All feeling rushes out through his feet. Naruto watches, horrified, as the monster twirls the mallet once more.

**“I can’t grow naturally, but…”** He taps it against his hip again, his dick swelling to the length of Hinata’s forearm, as wide as a man’s leg. He tosses the mallet to the side. His grin stretches across his face as he handles his now hefty appendage. **“Ohh, I can get used to having this. Maybe I’ll keep you alive.”** Without warning, the demon lunges at her, tearing her layered kimono open, hands grabbing and twisting around her breasts.

Her pained cry reverberates shrill off the walls and straight through Naruto’s being, desperation ringing through his mind.

“DON’T TOUCH HER!!!” Roaring unthinkingly, he jumps out, piercing his needle deep into the demon’s left eye. He rapidly withdraws it just before the demon slaps a hand up to his face. His needle buries into the middle of the other iris.

The demon cries out an unearthly wail, hands over his face.

Naruto flies down Hinata’s body, lunging his needle straight into the demon’s monstrous dick. The demon falls backward, Naruto pulled forward with him, and he’s clapped into the demon’s hand.

The demon curls a fist around his body, crushing the air out of him, and the last thing he hears is Hinata screaming his name before he’s tossed down the demon’s gullet.

He comes to with a sharp breath, his chest stabbing over and over.

He can’t see a thing.

Yet he can hear the roiling of the insides of the demon’s gut, and the demon’s voice from outside, howling, **“NO STOP! STOP IT! I’LL KILL YOU!”**

Alarms sound off in his brain to move, to somehow get back to Hinata, and he forces himself to sit up.

He shouts in pain.

He’s covered in acidic slime, his skin itches and burns, tears uselessly fall from the excruciating agony all over his body.

Blind in the dark, he drags himself against the walls, trying to find a way out, but each movement feels only more impossible.

Eventually, he can’t bear to go forward any more, the pain too much, even though he refuses to die like this.

He claws against the flesh he’s slumped on, scratching, digging as furiously as possible for a way out.

The roiling in the demon’s gut grows louder, the acidic slime pooling more and more, higher and higher from his ankles, to his knees, his chest.

He can’t breathe.

He prays Hinata got away, that his efforts were enough to save her life. If he at least saved her, this life was worth it.

He’s pulled from the wall in a frenzy of movement, and suddenly, he’s tumbling out over hard ground. Loud hacking sounds echo around the cavern.

Naruto lays on the floor groaning, new pains shooting over his body. But he’s cognizant enough to realize the demon vomited him up. He tries to turn his head to see if Hinata is safe, that she’s not getting raped, or that she’s not already dead.

“Naruto-kun!!”

He’s scooped off the ground, and though his body shudders violently, his heart leaps in joy. “Hi-Hina-”

**“YOU WHORE! NASTY BITCH!! I’LL TEAR YOU TO PIECES!!!”**

Hinata runs, climbing over something bumpy and large, much bigger than her.

“Hina-” he tries.

“Don’t worry, Naruto-kun. We’re safe. He can’t hurt us.” She runs out of the cave and holds up the mallet in her other hand to show him.

He doesn’t know what she did, but the calm certainty in her voice is enough to relax his mind, his consciousness fading slowly to black.

When he wakes, he finds himself lying in a box, strips of cloth circling tight over his ribs.

“Naruto-kun?” A whisper of his name, so soft, so familiar, yet distant.

Blearily, he glances to the side.

Hinata, but all of her in one look, like when he watches her from afar and imagines what it would be like if she were the same size as him.

“Naruto-kun!” she cries, her hands gently landing on his arm, a beautiful smile blossoming over perfect features, only marred by tears in opalescent eyes.

His heart flutters, warmth suffusing his entirety. He watches this vision, something hot growing in his stomach.

Her eyes close, tears falling down, her palms and fingers pressed flat together in prayer. “I’m so glad, I’m so thankful. Thank you, thank you…” Her voice was always quiet and breathy, but now it’s like he can barely hear her.

_She’s my size. I’m not dead, am I? Am I dreaming? She looks so real._ Wordlessly, he reaches for her, his fingers coming into contact with her hands.

Her eyes open, beautiful smile still shining on him. Her hands, smaller and more delicate than his own, close around his.

“Amazing.” His voice bounces off the walls, Hinata flinches, her smile dropping, her eyes widening. “Sorry,” he quickly says, only for her to flinch again. He blinks hard now, discovering that she’s still sitting beside him, that she’s not disappearing, that either this situation is real or he’s gone completely crazy. “Hinata-sama!”

She ducks down, hands at her ears. “Naruto-kun, why are you yelling?”

“I’m not-!” He pauses, completely, utterly confused. He tries again, really focusing on how much air leaves his mouth, and he attempts to whisper, “Why are you small?”

She sits up, a vibrant smile twinkling on her face again, and she laughs, shaking her head. “I’m not small. You’re big now!”

“What?!”

Hinata cringes.

He cringes, too, realizing exactly how loud he just was. “Sorry,” he whispers. But his whisper isn’t at all as soft as Hinata’s.

“I used the demon’s hammer,” she explains. “When I got us back to the town, I pounded the mallet until you were big.”

He stares at her, speechless.

So he’s not in a box.

He’s in a room.

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask first for your permission,” she suddenly says, smile disappearing. “I just needed someone to notice you. You got hurt so badly. I was so afraid you were going to die.”

He grabs at her hand again, needing to hold her as an anchor in such sudden, new circumstances. “Don’t say sorry, Hinata-sama. This is like a dream to me. I can’t believe I’m holding your hand like this.”

She blushes, and his stomach heats up again. “I’m really happy to hold your hand like this too, Naruto-kun.”

He takes in her smile, how small she looks now, how right her hand feels in his. It’s more incredible than anything he imagined. But a worry still gnaws at the back of his mind. “What about the demon?”

She frowns in thought. “...I think he’s still there.”

“How long has it been since then?”

“About a whole day.”

His eyes widen. “How did you beat him?! Why didn’t he follow after you?”

She flinches at his raised voice. But then her gaze drifts away, seeming to look anywhere but at him. She shrugs. “I didn’t beat him. You saved me...”

He knows full well that the demon was strong enough to kill her if the demon had tried, even while blinded and a needle deep in his dick. “No, you saved me,” he contradicts softly but seriously. “What did you do?”

“I used the mallet.” She shrugs again, refusing to tell him any more details with a shake of her head.

She refuses to leave his room. She spends every day and night at his bedside, attending to his needs, feeding him, washing him, changing him, even though it’s embarrassing.

Once in awhile, in a lull of their conversation, while admiring her beauty, he remembers that she was supposed to marry the Otsutsuki the day he woke up.

But no one brings it up, especially not Hinata.

He can only assume that the wedding was called off, if not something worse.

When he’s finally well enough to get out of bed and walk around, the first thing he does with his new, big body is slide open the fusuma by himself.

It slams open, the wooden frame splintering in multiple places. His jaw drops open.

Hinata’s hands cover her mouth in her shock.

“I didn’t mean to-! I- I-” he stutters out in panic.

Hinata’s father, his master, a man who’s never spoken to him since the day he first barged into their home demanding to be a samurai, forgives him immediately for the damaged property. “It’s nothing compared to what you’ve done for me.”

Naruto discovers he has to reevaluate his strength in nearly all situations. When it concerns Hinata, it’s easy to be soft and gentle. It’s easy to whisper to her, for his muscles to turn to mush. The desire to embrace her consumes him in any moment alone, but those are few and far between in his new, busy life.

With everything and everyone else, he’s almost always too much. Too loud, too strong, too fast, his presence itself seems to make others shy away. But within a day of real samurai training, he’s beaten every other warrior in practice combat.

He’s gifted his own sword.

He’s quartered with the other single samurai in special housing.

No one knows where he came from, only that he saved the shogun’s retainer’s daughter from a terrible demon.

But Naruto knows otherwise.

And the unknown of what happened while he was in the demon’s gut bounces around his imagination at night. The demon’s cries and threats resound in his memory.

What did the love of his life do?

So he takes his sword, dresses in his samurai uniform, runs up the mountain by the shrine, eventually finds the demon’s lair.

He can still clearly remember the demon snapping Toneri’s sword in half, the demon calling it a toy. The way the demon grabbed at Hinata, holding her with one hand, how, as he understands now, scared out of his mind he was for her.

He ventures into the cavern. Piles of gold and precious stones glimmer in the dim light. Then something huge, like a long boulder, lies in the way, nudged up against a side of the cave. He vaguely remembers Hinata choosing to climb over it instead of around. He walks the other way, eventually finding the shriveled up body of the demon at the end, connected to that long obstruction.

It’s the demon’s dick.

_She used the mallet._ He gapes in disgust and awe at the scene, and he realizes his needle is still in there somewhere. Whether it grew with this monstrosity or not is a horrifying thing to ponder, and for the tiniest fraction of a second, he nearly feels pity for the demon’s assuredly painful and slow death.

He aggressively slices the demon up with his sword, the head, the chest, the stomach, unhesitatingly, angrily, shredding up the awful dick with all of his might until he finds his needle, nearly as long as himself. Then he continues, mincing the demon up, appreciation and respect welling up for Hinata’s rightful choice of punishment.

A date is set for their wedding.

People accept it, only because they have no power to debate the decision. It’s obvious that Naruto will soon lead their region’s shogun to victories on the battlefield. His ridiculous strength, unparalleled speed, booming voice, and tall stature seem made for war. When questioned on his power, the man pulls an extremely serious expression, then claims he’s fought monsters his size his whole life, like birds, bugs, snakes, and all sorts of creatures.

Despite the whispered rumors circulating about his mysterious origins, the daughter’s infatuated gaze is unmistakable, further creating a scandalous buzz surrounding the couple.

He’s never seen anyone so beautiful, so perfect, as his bride, and he’s afraid that he actually died in the stomach of the demon, that none of this is real.

But the shine of her eyes, the whisper of her voice, the warm smiles, all of it sets his stomach on fire.

The meal with her family passes gaily, sake flowing and repeated congratulations offered to them for their marriage.

When finally the last of the guests leave and her father has retired to his own room, Naruto sweeps Hinata up into his arms. He carries her to their room, the paths around the house, the room itself, everything so much smaller than how he remembers living here last.

They stand closely together, his arms circling around her back, her head on his chest, his nose in her hair. Silently, they breathe each other in, his body tensing, relaxing, tensing back up repeatedly as he memorizes this moment.

He unknots her obi.

She shutters out a breath.

He steps back, catches her gaze, finds the same trust and acceptance he’s always seen there. Slowly, carefully, he peels the uchikake back, her arms pulling out, the material slips to the floor at their feet.

She’s still fully clothed, but his breathing speeds up, tension gripping his core, heat building once more in his loins. She blinks up at him, affection clearly and freely his, and he opens her kosode with less ceremony, pulling it off of her and to the ground.

Her last layer, thin over her skin. His hands slowly trace her curves over the material, and in his mind, he can picture traveling, running, over the plains and hills of her form. How intimately he has known the slopes of her body, how he remembers the smooth, soft white of her skin just beneath. All of it was his, then. And now...

“Naruto-kun…”

A shiver skates over his spine, his eager need standing at attention to her call. He spreads the nagajuban open, skin revealed, all of it visible with just one look, all of _her_ in his vision, all of her beneath his hands.

She’s even softer now, something he didn’t think possible. His hands wander, eliciting breathy sighs and trembles of her body with each pass over wherever he pleases.

He himself trembles with need, a heavy ache rippling through him, and he pulls her into his embrace again. He’s gasping with desire, breathing her in until his face is at her graceful neck, his hands firm at her hips, smoothing to the even softer cushion of her bottom.

It’s not enough, yet he doesn’t go further to that place where he knows she would completely collapse beneath his control. He wants to draw this out for as long as he can, the last time he touched her was that humiliating night not so long ago, that time he was certain she would soon be in the arms of another.

That other man could have been touching her right now, holding her tight in the dark. He himself could have been condemned to just hiding, waiting for all of this to be over, wishing that Hinata would never find pleasure with that other man.

His own obi hits his feet.

His thoughts jarred back to the present.

He lifts up from her neck to meet her lidded gaze, their breaths rushing in and out, mixing, sharing.

Her fingers fumble about the ties of his hakama, unknotting until it pools at his feet. With much less care than he took, she pulls open his kimono and nagajuban off his shoulders, her hands immediately running up his bare chest.

He smiles at her excitement to touch him, her complete abandon of propriety or any possible facade of “duty” to her husband.

“We have all night together,” he chuckles as her fingers trace patterns over his skin, her hands massaging his muscles everywhere she can reach, sending pleasant sensation through him, equally relaxing and enticing. Unbidden, his hands begin to roam faster, squeeze harder on her soft parts.

She moans, her body pressing to his completely, his erection hard against her stomach. “I have tonight with you, yes, but you’ve had so much more,” she argues. “I couldn’t touch you like this, I was afraid I would hurt you.” She rubs herself against him, her body curving so soft on his, light firing off like lightning beneath his skin.

His restraint gone.

Squishy and moist, her womanhood splits open to his flattened fingers readily. He clutches her around her back, his other hand pressing that sensitive spot up and down, up and down, and within an easy minute, she’s dripping on his fingers, crying breathily at his lips, shaking and melting against him. She droops to the floor and stretches out on her futon, her hands balled demurely on her breasts.

He stands above her.

Her body spread before him.

His hand sticky and pungent at his nose, the familiar scent arousing him, filling him with that sense of control, power, entitlement to her, and he rubs the mess over his ready piece. Habit has him handling himself, his hand stroking his need faster and faster.

Memories of the pictures in her instructional book flood his mind, memories of his piece enfolded by her warm, wet tongue plague him.

He belongs in her.

There, between her soft legs, where her honey drips out sweet and hot, he could push into her, connect with her, fill her, satisfy his lust and love to his heart’s content, clutch her to him so tightly, all of her…

He kneels, rubbing himself off, aiming it at that apex of her legs.

Hinata watches him, eyes wide, gaze never leaving the motion of his hand on his piece. Her hand darts down toward her femininity, and he’s reminded of how she did the same thing while he got off on her tongue.

He nods, rubbing himself harder, groaning in approval. “Do you feel how wet you are? Do you want me there?”

Her fingers slide around between her glistening folds, her shoulders locking, her lips parted around his whispered name.

He scrambles closer, almost leaning over her now, grabbing her wrist, bringing her fingers up, breathing her musk in deeply, his brain muddling, and he wraps her hand around his piece, helping her to rub him.

“Naruto-kun!” she gasps.

“This belongs in you, doesn’t it?” He registers his volume rising, but he doesn’t care who hears him.

She nods, whimpering, and he presses his body against hers, coating his excitement along her arousal.

Leaning on his forearms, he hovers over her, his length rubbing at her moist entrance, ripples of pleasure making him shudder.

She bucks her hips into his, the roll of her body thrilling, her hands squeezing his muscles, and she gasps, a syrupy sound that goes straight to his groin.

“Hinata!”

She flinches, and he’s certain the whole household heard him.

“Sorry,” he groans, but he knows he’s still too loud. He gains his knees again, breathing deeply, trying to calm down, instead his eyes falling to her dripping core, his hand already smearing what he can and spreading it on the underside of his length. He parts her lower lips with his thumbs, and his girth is _so much bigger_ , he doubts he’ll really be able to fit.

He’s so big now compared to her.

He could hurt her so easily if he loses control...

His finger snuggles into flesh incredibly soft and silky.

She squirms, twisting, and he thumbs her sensitive bud until she’s moving on his finger with ardor. Two fingers sliding into her, scissoring apart, loosening her flesh, and soon, fragrant moisture drips down his knuckles. He pulls his fingers out of her puffy flesh, breathing in her scent, the heady aroma rattling his patience, urging him to push into her flesh until his tip disappears, his length slowly, slowly tucking into soft, tight heat.

He inhales deeply, perspiration beading his forehead in concentration. Her flesh clings around him, squeezing as if to prevent his intrusion, and it takes everything in him to ignore the sparks alight on his skin, the need to shove himself into her without care.

She shudders and trembles, her chest rising and falling deeply, small sounds forced from her throat. Her whole body reacting to him.

He watches possessively, his thumb returning to press on her bud, everything changing.

Her head tilts back, a moan singing out of her exposed neck, his piece sliding into her shivering body. He grabs at a shaking breast, the skin spilling through his fingers, and he plucks at the distended nipple, her silken grip delicately flexing around him.

“Naruto-kun,” she gasps, and his hips jerk instinctively, lodging himself flush against her, her breath hitching.

Ecstasy sparks through his brain.

He draws out, pleasure curling beneath his skin as he watches her tremble. Rubbing her hardened bud enthusiastically, he smoothly reenters into fresh, slippery heat. Playing with her nipples, he feels her shivering like a leaf in the wind.

He’s pleasing her more than ever, her whole body like an instrument he can tune to his liking, all of her easily accessible to him. Her pleasure a song he once only knew in parts, but now a whole she’ll only perform for him.

He pinches her nipples, rubs her bud, tunnels in and out of her honeyed core. “Does this feel good?”

“Mm…yes,” she gasps. She trembles beneath his playing hands, around his sharp lust, moaning repeatedly. “Oh, Naruto-kun…Naruto…” Her voice rises, breathier and breathier, until she sobs, his piece squelching into creamy warmth.

He groans as she squeezes around him as if to never let him leave. “I belong in you, I belong in you…”

Glazed eyes find his, and she smiles exhaustedly for a second, until a sudden, tortured moan draws out from his continued ministrations. “Wait, ah, I can’t,” she breathes, but he can’t stop.

Can’t stop teasing her body, controlling her very breath and expressions, watching her come apart on him until she’s crying out in rapture, louder than he’s ever heard her, his senses climbing on the slip and glide of her delight.

She’s dripping around him, his pelvis damp, the futon ruined beneath. Over and over again, her voice rises fuller and fuller until she shatters, squeezing around him, drenching him, liquid euphoria puddling, her scent filling the air.

He marvels at how easy it is.

How hard he used to have to work to receive what he once thought was so much.

That was nothing compared to this. If he were little again, he’d be bathing in her nectar, completely soaked, like his sopping, rigid length penetrating her tender folds.

“Oh, oh!, oh!, yes!, oh yes!, nah, Naru! Naruto!” She’s incoherently babbling as she peaks, her entire face flushed and agonized as she humps up at him, and he stabs her with focused attention, trying to reach as deeply as he can. She gasps for breath, coming down from her high, and he twirls her pointy nipples with his thumbs, but her hands weakly grab his. “Come,...come closer…” she begs.

His hips slow, chills running down his body at the teasing pace. “I don’t wanna smash you…”

“Hm?”

“Or yell in your ear again.”

She shakes her head, her hips swiveling, his piece moving with her. “I want you…come...”

So he acquiesces, leaning down to embrace her, her legs steadying around his hips.

Adoring, dreamy eyes meet his own, her hot breath puffing at his lips before he flattens on her, her cheek snuggling into his shoulder. Squishy breasts rise up against his abdomen. Her hands grasp at his neck and bicep.

She’s small.

So small beneath him.

He’s big. Big inside of her, big all over and around her, completely having her. His senses zero in on his turgid ache, how she soothes and pleases him, how she fits perfectly against him, her soft body wiggling and rubbing on him with each thrust. Her gasps dewy on his skin. Her flesh sucking him in. Their joined hips slapping together. “Hinata…”

“Oh Naruto...”

He tries to hold back a whimper, tries to hide his face in her hair as he swells within her. His hand caresses down the curves of her breast, waist, hip, to cup her bottom, squeezing and holding her in place for his fervid thrusts.

Steamy fluid splashes around him, and he groans, focusing on how her body accepts him, opens up for him so sweetly. Fire burns from his length, licking up his gut, tantalizing his mind to the edge. He can’t help squeezing a handful of her cushy bottom tightly, control vanishing as he slams himself into her as hard as he can, forcing his desire to split her apart until she’s sobbing beneath him, his length barely pulling out before extending into her deeper and harder than before.

His heart thunders in his ears, his own shouts and groans indistinguishable from the song of their bodies and her calls, torrents of power and desire inundating his veins, seizing his chest, engorging his length, and he shoves his throbbing piece deep into her soaking folds, bursting apart in blinding euphoria.

She squeezes around him, encouraging new waves of his release, heavy spurts of his claim forced out with each twitch of his gut. His whole body melting, liquifying about her, the end of him and the start of her indistinguishable in the following haze and sluggish heat.

Thoughtless, settled, he lies over her soft form, unable to move from her weak embrace, the steadying rise and fall of her chest easing him out of the fog.

Only after his piece falls from her core does he finally, reluctantly shift off of her, his exhausted gaze passing over her still form, her brows only furrowing, a mumbled, “Naruto-kun,” as he pulls her against him, cuddling into blissful sleep.

In the morning, they snuggle until he's hard inside of her, pushing gasps of pleasure from her lips, soft sounds that still send shivers up his back.

Just as he promised, he takes her away from reality, to a place just for the two of them.

When Naruto and Hinata finally make the trek back to his hometown, he discovers he lived even farther away than he thought. But the distance is no matter.

Hinata is overjoyed to see the countryside, to see the lands outside of her immediate neighborhood. They take their time, admiring the land and each other.

His parents live quietly in a tiny community in the mountains. Tinier than he remembers. The house, one he had long since realized was small compared to Hinata’s, is much, much smaller than he thought. He needs to duck to go through the door, its frame not built for people his size, but then again, not very many people are his height. A strange irony he hasn’t found the right moment to question Hinata about.

His parents are small, simple in dress, humble in belongings, and Naruto can remember how he found entertainment in nature as a child rather than staying indoors. How he ran away from his parents’ watchful gaze at any chance, how they had finally relented to his adventurous spirit and acknowledged that if they didn’t give him their blessings, he would run away for good on his own.

They cry when he introduces himself.

They cry harder when he introduces Hinata.

They recount how they prayed for his safety everyday.

Hinata reveals the tale of his miraculous growth, how the demon jumped out, how he saved her by stabbing the demon's eyes, how he escaped the demon's gut, how the demon ran away in fear, how they found the magic mallet and made him tall. It's not the entire truth, but it's what she's comfortable telling. She says all of it must be thanks to their daily prayers.

After a last shrine visit, and when it comes time to depart, Naruto and Hinata offer for the aging couple to come live with them.

Using the magic of the mallet, their family never wanted for anything again, their family prospering over generations.

**Author's Note:**

> If you don't know the story of Issun Boshi, you can find variations of the folktale/fairy tale on Google! I obviously took a lot of liberties with it.
> 
> Cultural Notes?  
> -kimono in the feudal era was different from kimono today, the history of kimono was a wikipedia hole I fell into.  
> -houses didn't have their own bath tubs  
> -samurai lived together in "dorms" and lived near their leader  
> -Naruto is adopted into the Hyuuga family, a common practice when there's no male heir for a prominent clan.  
> -marriages were of course arranged for political reasons  
> -public affection was taboo (it still is somewhat frowned upon in Japan)  
> -affectionate kissing is imported behavior from the West, and following the Heian jidai through feudalism, Japan was a closed nation. There are no records in writing or in naughty art of kissing from that time period (that I know of), though that doesn't necessarily mean people didn't kiss when getting busy in bed...  
> -saying "I love you" often is imported behavior from the West  
> -Japanese folktales are usually tied to real, specific locations and, once in awhile, real people. The demons/ogres "oni" in the story are sometimes thought to be people who were enemies/invaders.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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